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WORLD GASTROENTEROLOGY NEWS MAY 2016
Editorial | Expert Point of View | Gastro 2016: EGHS-WGO | WDHD News | WGO & WGOF News | WGO Global Guidelines | Calendar of Events
15th Iranian International Congress of
Gastroenterology and Hepatology (ICGH 2015)
Reza Malekzadeh, MD, AGAF
Professor of Medicine and Gastroenterology
Director, Digestive Disease Research Institute
Tehran University of Medical Sciences; Tehran, Iran
President, ICGH 2015; President, IAGH
Seyed Alireza Taghavi, MD
Associated Professor of Medicine and Gastroenterology
Gastroenterology Department
Shiraz University of Medical Sciences; Shiraz, Iran
Secretary, ICGH 2015
The Iranian Association of Gastroen-terology
and Hepatology (IAGH) held
its 15th annual congress in November
2015 in Shiraz, Iran. This congress
was held in collaboration with the
Gastro-entero-hepatology Research
Center of Shiraz University of Medical
Sciences.
With about 800 attendants from
all over the world, 120 speakers,
350 submitted abstracts, and five
workshops, this conference was the
most important annual event for the
gastroenterology community in Iran
and also served as a meeting place to
make connections for both Iranian
and international scientists.
As usual, this meeting was at-tended
by a significant number of
experts from both Iranian and foreign
academic centers. A full day of post-graduate
programming, with the main
subject of liver diseases, was held on
the first day. Topics such as Hepatitis
B, Hepatitis C, autoimmune Hepa-titis,
and Wilson’s disease, as well as
practical approaches to the common
problems in cirrhosis (variceal bleed-ing,
coagulopathy), space occupying
lesions of the liver, and acute liver
injury were discussed by experts. The
target group for the postgraduate
course was community internists and
gastroenterologists as well as internal
medicine residents.
The post-graduate course was fol-lowed
by three days of main program-ming
in two conference halls. An
exhibition by local and international
pharmaceutical companies, as well as
endoscopy equipment and accessory
manufacturing companies, was held
in conjunction with the main pro-gram.
Three live workshops on upper
and lower endoscopy and ERCP were
also held during the conference.
The conference was opened by
Professor Reza Malekzadeh, President
of IAGH, who presented data on the
global situation of research in medi-cine
as well as in gastroenterology, and
the role and rank Iranian scientists in
production of these scientific data.
The first day’s focus was on gastro-esophageal
reflux disease (GERD)
and Barrett’s esophagus, in which new
data as well practical points about
incidence, presentation, and preven-tion
of these important diseases, were
discussed in panels and lectures. The
differences in incidence of Barrett’s
between Iran and western countries
and their possible cause and implica-tions
were also discussed.
An entire session was devoted to
upper GI neoplasia, in the light of
new data from the internationally
conducted Golestan cohort proj-ect.
New local population–based
data and management issues about
nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH)
were discussed. Liver transplanta-tion,
helicobacter pylori, and common
issues such as incontinence were also
discussed in detail.
The Golestan Cohort Study (GCS)
is the largest (50,100 participants)
prospective cohort study in the Mid-dle
East and North Africa. It started
in 2004 in North-eastern Iran primar-ily
focused on Esophageal Cancer
and in addition included other cancer
and chronic diseases. Ten years after
the enrollment phase, the follow up
success rate is &gt;99% and up to now
5,100 death have been recorded. GCS
is going on very well and currently
more than 50 manuscripts have been
published from this study.
Simultaneous meetings of the
“National Cirrhosis Registry Working
Group” and “National IBD Registry”
concluded the first day.
Almost all of the sessions were
followed by case discussions and
frequently heated question and answer
sessions.
The second day’s sessions included
updates on the management of Hepa-titis
C and a session on pancreato-bili-ary
disorders. An entire afternoon was
devoted to lectures by internationally
invited lecturers from the Mediter-ranean
Task Force for Cancer Control